Test 3 Flashcards
Discuss the concepts of DaDa art and how they are reflected in art. What were the important characteristics of DaDa art?
* Reaction to WWI
- Logic, enlightenment
- Believed war was irrational, against war
- Arp said, “repelled by the slaughterhouses of the war, we turned to art” to save man
- Large amounts of casualties, airplanes used, chemical, and biological warfare.
- Writers and artists in Zurich wanted to take opposite approach and be irrational.
- What makes something beautiful? DaDa does the opposite.
* Examples of being irrational:
- Simultaneous poems
- Chance and finding accidental things was art
- Dada artists opposed bourgeoisie (middle class), they felt as if they were the ones making all the money and financing the war.
* Characteristics of Dada:
- Biomorphic: shapes that may or may not look like one thing or another.
- Ambiguous: can’t tell what the image is.
- Organic
- Machine like and mechanical
- non-sense
- non-art
- art is all about the mind and the intellectual
- assemblage
- collage/rubbings
- ready-made objects
- photomontage
*Examples of Artwork:
- Ernst, A Little Sick the Horse, 1920, Dada, Germany (clippings from catalogue adds)
- Ernst, The Elephant Celebes, 1921, Dada, Germany (organic and mechanical, makes no sense)
- Schwitters, Merz 94 Grunflec, 1920, Dada, Germany (merz - came from a piece of paper in the gutter, chance)
- Duchamp, Passage of Virgin to the Bride, 1913, Dada, France (modernize relationship, ambiguous, machine-like)
- Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923, Dada, US
\*seeing someone stripped bare in public \*love machine, act in a play, very ambiguous with sexual connotation \*criticism of machine of culture \*sold to a woman glass broke (**chance**) \*it gathered dust (**chance**)
- Duchamp, Bottle Drying Rack, 1914, Dada, France (ready-made, art is about the mind)
- Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913, Dada, France (touched ready made, pun…“artist on a Pedestool”)
- Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, Dada, France (Mona Lisa has a hot ass!!)
- Duchamp, The Fountain, 1917, Dada, France (urinal that was rejected from a show that said it would accept anything)
* Dada then becomes directly responsible for surrealism
* Dada became self-destructed when it was in danger of being acceptable
According to the Andre Breton, what were the definition and purpose of the Surrealist movement? What were the sources of influence on this movement? What are the stylistic and iconographic characteristics of Surrealist art?
*Background:
- Saw a man through a reflection in a window looked as if he had been cut in two….thought that was so strange. (surreal)
*Definition according to Breton of Surrealism:
- “pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express in verbal and in thought”
- “abscence of all control”…“similar to chance movement”
- “automatism” does come from the minds sub-conscious (Freud)
- if you concentrate on the subconscious outlook it would change your whole life
- he wrote two manifesto’s on surrealism
* Manifesto’s on Surrealism by Anton Breton
- 1st: 1925, Communism, developed after Russian Revolutions. Seen as popular, creating new world, Utopia.
- 2nd: 1929, Given up on communism, automatism, dreams.
*Purpose:
- Meant to shock people
- Reveals unconscious dreams and truths
- Makes you think
- Aware of subconscious mind, thoughts etc.
*Influence:
- Similar to DaDa in wanting to move away from logic
- Worked as a medic in war and dealt with “shell shocked” victims of war.
- Studied Freud and the different levels of consciousness.
- Jacque Vacne influenced Breton, they both had a dislike for the middle class.
- Communism was an influence because intellectuals thought they could recreate society
*Artists that were an influence:
- Paul Klee
> Fantasy Art, influenced Surrealism
Paul Klee, Twittering Machine, 1922, Fantasy Art, Germany
> Machine that flies like a bird
- Marc Chagall
I and the Village, 1911, Fantasy Art, France
> Remembrance to the family’s cow, mother milking the cow, tree in his hand represents when a son is born (Jewish tradition), woman upside down (represents unrealistic, dreams).
The Birthday, 1916, Fantasy Art, France
> Made for his wife’s birthday, levetating, unrealistic, “head over heels in love”
- Giorgio de Chirico
Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914, Pittura Metafiscia, Italy
> Statue in square forboding
> Little girl running towards shadow, evil?
> Van, doors are open, dangerous?
> Metaphysical Pictures
* about other realms
* conceptual reality
> 20th Century: filled with anxiety and the artwork represents the anxiety
The Disquieting Muse, 1916, Pittur a Metafiscia, Italy
The Great Metaphysician, 1917, Pittura Metafisicia, Italy
> Mannequins
> Surreal, Unusual Reality
*Traits/Characteristics:
- Automatism: comes from the mind, subconscious, not really thinking
- Biomorphic Form: organic, abstract
- Exploration of the unconscious and dreams
- Moved away from logical, unlogical
- Ambiguous: strange, mysterious
- Similar to Dada, chance
- Organic forms used mysteriously
- Uses ready-mades but called them found objects because they changed them
- Interpret it, has to do with art
- applied Freud’s ideas
- sexuality and violence
- dread fear of ectasy.
*Two phases of Surrealism:
- Improvisational Surrealism
> included in 1st Manifesto
> abstract
> Joan Miro, Jean Miro, Jean (Hans) Arp, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, De Chirico, Paul Klee, Man Ray, Picasso
- Magic Realism
> included in 2nd Manifesto
> illusionism
> Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Henry Moore, Matta Echaurren, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Delvaux
*Works of Art:
Max Ernst, Whole Town, 1934, Surrealism, France
> The beginning of surrealsim
> Frees mind from traditional views
> Gratuge, scrapes from images
Max Ernst, Europe After the Rain, 1940, Surrealism, US
> (Printmaking)
> Paint surface, glass
> Paper onto glass
> Pick up paint from glass
> Turn over to see images
> Added a few details to make it clear
> Gets away from conscious control
Joan Miro, Harlequin’s Carnival, 1924-1925, Surrealism, Spain
> Geometric Shapes
> Flattened Space
> From his own imagination, childhood background
> Born out of hallucinations, unconscious ideas
> Biomorphic Shapes
Discuss Marcel Duchamp’s art, concepts, and the consequences of his ideas for the future of art.
Duchamp:
- Paintings had traditional subject matter, like love, but in his style
- Early paintings had mechanichal look (nude decending straircase)
- Had experimented successfully with cubism but decided to abandon painting because he considered it mindless activity.
- Believed that art should appeal to the intellect rather than the senses.>This is seen in his ready-mades> Normal objects turned into artwork because the artist simply said so.
- His influence made itself felt in many other modern art movements for the rest of the century.
Duchamp, The Fountain, 1917, Dada, France
> most famous ready-made
> on committee of American Society of Independent Artist. “Anyone can submit without rejection”
> anonymous submission of urinal, was rejected, stepped down from committee
Duchamp, L.T.T.O.O.Q., 1919, Dada, France
> l_arge influence on future modern art _
> ready-made postcard of the Mona Lisa
\*painted a mustache, French letters sound like the Mona Lisa is a hot piece of ass!
> made fun of art, typical
> mind is involved
> was criticized, he explained that “Dada was born in of disgust.” Born in the face of war and thousands of casualities.
** > Dada was rationalized in ridiculousness.**
Discuss how DaDa and Surrealism relate to historical events and intellectual, social, political developments in European civilization during that period.
*Historical Events:
- WWI> Planes were first used> Biological and chemical warfare> DaDa and Surrealist artists believed that war was irrational and so they modeled their art after the irrational.
*Intellectual:
- Influenced by Freud
\>the subconscious mind and dreams
- Held simultaneous poem readings to demonstrate irrationality
- Made irrational statements
*Social:
- Artists were against war except the Futurists
- Against the middle class, they were funding the war
*Political Developments:
- WWI
- Communism< Manifesto’s on Surrealism by Anton Breton
- 1st: 1925, Communism, developed after Russian Revolutions. Seen as popular, creating new world, Utopia. - 2nd: 1929, Given up on communism, automatism, dreams.
